The Best of Enemies
by Tessenchan
Summary: [One-Shot] A different look at the episode of the same name.


Okie I wrote this a LONG time ago. (November 16 2002) Forgive me~ I wanted to put it up anyway, simply if for nothing else, my mini tribute to one of my favorite shows, M*A*S*H. ^-^  
  
Disclaimer: I dun own ANYTHING that even resembles M*A*S*H. Especially not Alan Alda. ^-^   
  
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The Best of Enemies  
  
My lips trembled. My hands were shaking. I put my rifle down for a moment, and briefly glanced pack at Ping Chao. He was still bleeding. I assumed he was alive. I ran over for a moment, checked him. Yes, he was still breathing. Please, gods, I begged silently, please let Ping Chao live until I can find help. He has been my friend since our childhood days. He has a family. It cannot be in his fate to die this day.   
  
Faintly I heard a vehicle. The engine of a Yankee animal's jeep. Barbarians. But still, it was more help than I could offer my friend. I took my rifle again and fired three shots. The idiot swerved and his engine died out. As he frantically tried to start the vehicle I strode out. Once out of the bushes I saw him clearly. He was tall as are all non-Asian people, and his hair was black. His eyes were blue and very wide. He was pale, almost white. Probably because he looked as terrified as I felt. He probably didn't realize it, but I was terrified. If this was anyone but a doctor, I would be forced to shoot him.  
  
No, there was the bag in the back of the jeep with the bright red symbol on it. Medicine. Barbarian medicine, but then again, these barbaric monkeys can handle wounds we cannot. Thank the gods, I swore in my mind, that you came when you did. But you do not understand me, as I do not understand you. I'll have to force you to understand, blasphemer.  
  
He muttered some American nonsense at me and I gestured at the bag with a short command. "That," I ordered, "Bring it!"  
  
He babbled something else and put his hands up. I jerked the gun again. He flinched and reached behind him, grabbed one of the bags. I shook my head and jabbed the gun at the medical pouch and he dropped the first one. He grabbed the other bag, the medical one, and reached out with it, offering it. I was growing impatient. Are all American as stupid as this one?  
  
"You!" I yelled, "You AND the bag!"  
  
Somehow, whether he understood Korean or the angry gestures --more likely the latter-- he got the idea. He grabbed the bag and tucked it under his arm, hands still up. He was muttering incessant Imperialist nonsense as I pressed the barrel of the rifle against his back. Forcibly I lead him back to Ping Chao.   
  
"You're a doctor," I said to him, "Heal Ping Chao." He muttered garble at me. I jabbed the gun at Ping Chao again. "Heal him! Now, dog!" He flinched and walked over, babbling as he went. Gods, Americans talk too much. And this one is as stupid as he looked.  
  
He knelt and gestured with his hands that he was going to move the blanket I'd laid over Ping Chao's body to keep him warm. He said something as he did this; I can only imagine he was telling me what he was doing. I didn't want words, I wanted action. "Hurry up!" I told him.  
  
He pulled the blanket back and then checked underneath Ping Chao's shirt. He was grumbling under his breath, either to himself to telling me what he was doing. Ping shifted with a groan and I tensed up. Ping, please hang on. I have a doctor. I will force him to heal you; please believe in me.  
  
The doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a little metal stick. He clicked the end and it shone light. A mini flashlight. He checked Ping's eyes, still talking to himself. This was the first American I'd seen up close. I'd shot many before, but this one was standing less than three feet away and I wasn't shooting him. So I was curious yet wary at the same time. And watching this American barbarian doctor talk to himself, I wondered, do all of them speak to no one? Are they that much different from us? No wonder we should extinguish their race. They're idiots!  
  
He looked at me and said something, and grabbed Ping Chao's shoulders, at the same time starting to stand. Obviously he meant to move Ping. "No!" I cried, "He stays here!" He stays here, Imperialist Yankee dog, not where you can take him and throw me into prison and then leave him to die. He stays here where you will heal him or I'll kill you! He shook my head several times and the doctor was obviously frustrated. He yelled at me in English and gestured with his hands.  
  
First he pointed to himself and then to Ping. This he did four or five times. Not a damn one of them I understood. Then he tapped himself, and clapped his hands together and then gestured behind him. There were a few others, all making no sense. The way he made it sound, he was going to move Ping and drive him down the road.... where? I stared at him. At least I had made myself somewhat understandable! This man was babbling in both a non-understandable language and sign language. Idiot.  
  
He leaned forward, obviously finished with his spectacle of gestures and made another move to move Ping. I cocked my piece. "No!" I repeated. Damn you, American, I said no. Don't make me shoot you. He threw his hands up and yelled at me again, and waved his hands back and forth. He leaned forward again and his arrogance angered me. Still trying to move him, eh dog? Well there was certainly a way to prevent him from trying any more. I pointed the gun directly at his head, the end of the barrel touching his helmet. He froze instantly. He nodded a few times and said something.  
  
He opened his bag and began to work. He spent only a few minutes on Ping's chest before moving to his head. He wrapped Ping's head and then looked at me. He said something slowly and clearly --but it was in English of course so I didn't understand-- and then touched his own head. He gestured at his eye and then his head again and then pointed behind himself again. I supposed his unit was back there; he kept pointing back there and signaling to Ping, that we should move him. A doctor's unit is a hospital, no?  
  
For a moment I wondered. Could I allow Ping and myself to be taken to a hospital, if that was where the doctor intended to take us? Would they kill us upon arrival? I knew for certain that wounded Americans found in field were shot on sight. I had done this myself thousands of times. Didn't the Americans also do the same? I had never seen many friends of mine again, after being taken by the American medical buses.  
  
The doctor gestured at Ping's head again. I didn't understand. This doctor is more worried about Ping's head injury than his chest wound? But his chest was open and bleeding freely. He only had a gash and a heavy bruise on his forehead. No, no, Ping's open chest must be more important. I pushed the doctor out of the way and knelt next to Ping. I moved the bandages.   
  
Yes, there was shrapnel in his chest. His wounds were open and bleeding. He looked at the doctor and then pointed to Ping's chest. "This," I said, "This is more important than a small gash!"  
  
The doctor sat up from where I'd shoved him and squatted on his haunches next to me, raising his voice a bit. There were no gestures, but the sounds he made seemed the same as he'd said before. Apparently he was simply repeating what he'd told me a second before. Apparently I wasn't getting the point. And apparently he wasn't getting my point either.  
  
"You heal this wound first!" I yelled at him, jabbing at Ping's chest injury, "A bruise does not hinder a North Korean soldier!"  
  
The doctor rolled his eyes and adjusted himself, shaking his head. I believe he was frustrated with me. Well, I don't care, I thought to myself, At least you're doing as I told you. I suddenly thought of something. Americans were sympathetic people. More so than even the most empathetic Koreans I had known. I reached into Ping's pocket for the picture of his family.  
  
Ping Chao'd gotten lucky and stolen an object Americans called Polaroid cameras from a passer-by vehicle. He'd taken pictures of himself and his family to be reminded of them while we were on patrol destroying the Imperialists. The picture he had with him was of his wife and three children. Kyo Chaun, Ling Shou, Sou Ming and Tu Yen.   
  
"He has such a young family," I said softly, remembering how much Kyo Chaun had begged Ping Chao to be careful. I shoved the picture at the American.  
  
He glanced at it and muttered something under his breath, shrugging and going back to the bag. I sighed. "They cannot survive without him. And you're going to let him die. Their hardship will be because of you." I glared at him, and he stared at me. Then he responded in his language, and then, gesturing caution, reached into his pocket. He pulled out an envelope and out of it pulled a picture of his own. There was an older man and a younger boy in the black and white photograph. The American jabbed the picture at himself and then showed me the picture again. I assume he meant it was his own family. He put it back in his pocket and then went back to working on Ping.  
  
I felt ashamed suddenly, for assuming Ping and I were the only ones who had been caught in this. Neither Ping nor myself had wanted to fight; we simply wanted to farm and raise our families the way my father and his father had raised us. And I had the audacity to assume we were the only innocents?  
  
I sat opposite him while he operated, pulling the chunks of American ammunition out of Ping's chest. He was talking to himself again. How strange this person is, I thought. It must be an American thing.  
  
Suddenly Ping began to move about, choking. The doctor said something to me. I stood. "What's happening to him? Heal him!" I said, and the doctor waved a hand at me. I narrowed my eyes. The doctor looked straight at me and said something slowly and clearly --in English again; it must be an American thing to believe that if you speak loudly and slowly everyone will automatically understand you-- and still I didn't understand.  
  
The doctor yelled at me and took my gun from me, threw it behind him. He yanked me down by my arms, firmly planting my hands on Ping's shoulders. Then he took the small knife he'd been using while operating on Ping to cut a slit in Ping's throat. I winced when the blood came up. It was sickening. For a second or two he cut into him, and then grabbed my hands and made me hold open the hole he'd made.   
  
While I sat there watching him and trying not to throw up, he frantically searched his pockets, and after a moment found a pen. He took it apart and blew through it, for what reason I could not tell, until he inserted it into the hole in Ping's neck.   
  
Once the pen case was in place, the doctor brightened. He looked somewhat pleased, but then it began to fade. He pushed me off and looked Ping over. Then he turned frantic and bent down, blowing into the pen case. I was trembling as I watched the doctor straddle my childhood friend and pump his chest. What had happened? Was Ping not recovering?  
  
For a minute or two the doctor performed this manic ritual. He blew into the pen case, pumped Ping's chest. After a short series of this he pressed his hand to Ping's neck, and then opened his eyelids, peering at his eyes.  
  
Ping's eyes were fixed and staring dead ahead. But not seeing any more. I knew it. But I didn't want to believe it. I stared at the doctor, in some part of me hoping there was more he could do. The doctor's shoulders slumped. He looked as if he were about to cry as he got up off Ping and sank to the earth. Angrily he pounded a fist into the ground.  
  
I stared wide-eyed. I knew the emotion. Grief. I was feeling it myself, if only inside. But this doctor was an American. Ping Chao and I were North Korean. Enemy soldiers. This doctor had failed to save one enemy's life. And yet he slouched before me, grieving the life he could not save.  
  
I stood up and walked back to where the American had thrown my gun before, and I picked it up. Slowly he turned towards me, his foreign blue eyes watching me with fear. Did he fear I would kill him now, that he had not saved my friend?  
  
Had it been a day before, I would have. Americans were our enemy. A day ago, I would've killed you.  
  
But today I learned that there are innocents on both sides. And you feel pain when you lose a life. The Korean way is different of course, but Ping was still my friend. You tried to save him so you shall live.  
  
"Go," I said to him. "Get out of here."  
  
I had to say it again before he slowly stood and picked up his helmet, and began to leave. I threw the gun down and pulled out my knife and began to dig a grave for Ping. I'm sorry, my friend, this is all I can give you. I would rather it be back home, with your family's consent.  
  
Suddenly I noticed the green metal helmet that the American doctor had worn seem to appear out of nowhere and scoop the earth from the area I'd chosen. I looked over to my right. The doctor was on his knees, staring at me. Then, for the first time since I'd met this strange foreigner, he had nothing to say and leaned forward, scooping out more of the dirt with his helmet. I leaned forward and began to dig again also.  
  
For hours we dug, until it was satisfactory. The sun went down just as we were placing Ping Chao's body into the grave. Then the doctor helped me to cover it. I stood and looked at him. He looked back at me. I pointed, with my hands, not the gun, back at the area where I'd first shot at him and then said, "Go now."  
  
This time I didn't have to tell him twice.  
  
E*N*D 


End file.
